Sunday, 20 November 2011

A weakness for outside backs

Having a look at a few rugby players on the web for the first time in a while, I foundthis 2008 list of the thirty best players of the past thirty years, excluding those not eligible to play for Australia:

Andrew Johns

Wally Lewis

Brad Fittler

Darren Lockyer

Allan Langer

Mal Meninga

Peter Sterling

Laurie Daley

Brett Kenny

Bradley Clyde

Mick Cronin

Steve Walters

Glenn Lazarus

Steve Rogers

Gorden Tallis

Shane Webcke

Steve Roach

Terry Lamb

Ricky Stuart

Ray Price

Andrew Ettingshausen

Danny Buderus

Jonathan Thurston

Cameron Smith

Graham Eadie

Steve Mortimer

Benny Elias

Wayne Pearce

Nathan Hindmarsh

Cliff Lyons

Although I have not access to enough rugby league footage to tell if this list really is accurate, what I do know about rugby league (the Super League war reduced my interest in the game I must confess) I can state that the main flaw with the list is positional. There is not a single winger in that list; though wingers never win player-of-the-year awards, that should hardly mean they should be omitted.

Eric Grothe senior would be the obvious choice to rectify this omission: for one thing he was one of only two players

Also, with fullbacks and centres, the list is not only weak but also places the few in those positions in odd places:

Darren Lockyer

Mal Meninga

Mick Cronin

are all very high given the lack of outside backs in the list as a whole. Then Graham Eadie, though from my limited experience watching the sport the bets player I have seriously seen, is a little too old (he first played in 1971) to be a part of a list covering the period from 1978 to 2007.

As for inside backs, it is hard to see apart from his bad injury record (his last injury-free season was in 1989) how Greg Alexander was not preferred over Steve Mortimer or Cliff Lyons.

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About Me

A former student at Melbourne and RMIT who hoped to get a job in librarianship by 2009.
Be wary that I tend to have very specialised interests and often do not want too general questions.
I enjoy reading about many difficult topics and would love to be able to discuss them with people who know more about them than people around me.
I have a particular love for lists of “best” or “worst” music or books, and love statistics a great deal.